MARTIN O’Neill believes the competition for places in Villa’s central defensive department is starting to bring out the best in Curtis Davies.

The former Albion captain capped an impressive performance by scoring the first goal in Villa’s 2-1 victory over his old club on Saturday.

And O’Neill insists Davies is motivated by playing alongside Martin Laursen and the threat to his place by Carlos Cuellar and Zat Knight.

“He’s building a bit of momentum and it was a great goal,” said O’Neill.

“I think Curtis has benefited from playing with each one of them. He’s played a lot with Laursen and he’s played with Zat too and with Carlos.

“But he has to continue to improve. If you’ve got any ambition at all you’ll want to and I’m sure he has.”

O’Neill pointed to Knight’s hard luck at being left out against Albion and Cuellar’s transformation into an occasional right-back as proof of the strength at the heart of Villa’s defence.

“When Zat Knight came in I thought he did very well for us and he’ll be disappointed not to have started the game,” he said.

“But Laursen has been immense for us in a lot of matches. There is genuine competition for places at centre-back and I think that’s important for us.

“Carlos Cuellar has had to adjust and go and play right-back when we’ve had other people in and he doesn’t mind doing that. But Carlos came here essentially to play centre-back if he could so the competition for places has been very healthy.”

Davies refused to celebrate his first goal at Villa Park, and only the second of his claret and blue career, out of respect to Albion.

But the gesture was missed by his manager, who joked: “I was too busy celebrating!”